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Thursday, January 17, 2019

My random scene from last night's writing session with my writing partner, written to 30 Seconds From Mars' "Closer to the Edge" and based on this prompt:

“Zia?”

Everyone assembled in the tent looked up as the wizard poked her head in.

“She’s not here,” a silver-haired warrior said, standing up. “Isn’t she in Command?”

Shaking her head, the wizard backed out of the tent, striding to the nearby rise with irritated steps. Where under sunrays was the general? She’s got an op to lead in less than an hour; she should be triple checking her plans and briefing her team.

“Cori? Should we be worried?”

Tancorix spun around to see the silver-haired warrior had followed her, as had their chief healer. “I don’t know. I’ll let you know. Search the lower tents again, please, maybe I missed her?” She knew she hadn’t, but she needed solitude to listen.

“I’ll check the healer tent,” Mirabelle said, eyes narrowed in an attempt to keep her concern from showing too openly. “She has two lieutenants in there now.” The healer went off down the rise at a speed that would have been called a fast walk…but only by someone seven feet tall with a long stride. Anyone else would have called it running and would have been entirely correct.

“I’ll check Command again.” The warrior’s copper necklace threw back a flash of sunlight as she spun and hurried off, her braid bouncing and slapping against her neck.

Left alone, the wizard closed her eyes and breathed deeply, centering herself. Then, her eyes still closed, she reached out, searching for that wisp of dark purple.

There.

In the barracks?

What an odd place for her to be at this hour.And what an odd vibe coming off of her.

The wizard, to her credit, didn’t run toward the barracks, but those who passed her could tell she was bent on a purpose and merely smiled or called hellos instead of trying to stop her for conversation, as they otherwise would have.

She caught up with the general as she exited the barracks.

“General, please!” a young man scarcely old enough to grow a beard tumbled out of the barracks on Zia’s heels. “Please, I…” he trailed off when he saw the wizard. “Milady Tani.”

Tancorix raised her eyebrows at the boy, one she recognized as a promising scout-in-training. He sent her a pleading glance, and then his eyes fell before the general’s uncompromising posture. The wizard nodded, mutely promising to try to find out what was going on, and fell into step with the general, heading toward their tent. Zia was closed off to the point that the chill coming from her was alarming.

The warrior and the healer, both in the middle of the camp on their quest to find Zia, stopped upon seeing her, and Tancorix waved for them to wait nearby but leave her to talk to the general.

The instant the tent flap dropped behind them, Tancorix circled around to stand in front of Zia. “Talk. What did you do? Why does Meysu look like you kicked him?” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended, but even trying to soften it didn’t quiet the worry bleeding into it.

Sliding a hand over her eyes, Zia was silent until she’d removed her cloak and flipped it onto a cot. “I took him off the strike team.”

“Did he do something?”

“What? No. I just reconsidered.” Zia sat down and reached for her combat boots.

Tancorix stared at her. “I’m confused. I thought you expressly added him to this team because it was as safe an induction as he could get.”

“I made a mistake.”

“Okay, now I’m getting worried.” Clenching her hands tightly didn’t calm the power sparking under her skin but tucking her arms behind her back did at least keep Zia from seeing the orange glow. In this strange mood, her general might well decide to simply shut down, pull rank, and leave. “You, we went over the lineup of that team four times. What mistake? When? What happened.”

Zia finally glanced up, briefly, but it was enough for the wizard to see the iron determination in her eyes. “It’s too dangerous for him. There will be another chance soon.”

No less befuddled, Tancorix blinked at her. A rustling on the roof of the tent announced that the wind had made good on its promise to pick up pace. Which was exactly what they were waiting for, because moving upwind, they’d surprise the garrison they were going to reclaim. Time was running short, and the general continued dressing in light armor as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

“He’s good.” She shifted and sat down, cracking her knuckles as Zia tightened her belt. “He’s been waiting for this. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Abruptly, Zia wrenched her belt off and flung it onto her cot, startling even more tension into the wizard. “I’m not losing him on his first mission,” the general said in a voice so stiff it was hardly recognizable as human.

Oh.

This was about L. The chief scout who was still missing.

Of course.

“So you don’t give him a chance to prove himself even?” Tancorix said gently. Carefully, so carefully this had to be done.

“His time will come. It’s just not today.”

“But another good mission might not come along for weeks, and he’ll be losing valuable hours he could have spent gaining field experience in the meantime.”

“Mmmhm.”

Tancorix had had enough. In a single stride, she came up off the cot and wrenched Zia around to look at her. “You can’t protect everyone,” she snapped, and the words held equal measures worry, understanding, and frustration.

Zia didn’t look at her, a surer sign than anything else that she knew she didn’t have a strong position from which to insist. “I have to try,” she said in the weary tone of someone who knew they were stepping into an argument.

“No, you do not. You think you do, but you know better than any of us that you can’t and sometimes you shouldn’t try.”

“I am his general!” Zia flung her head back and matched the wizard’s glare. “You can talk all you want to about how I need to give them a chance and how he’s suited for this mission. I know all of that. I gave him the chance in the first place. But you know and I know that we could be walking into something more dangerous than I originally anticipated. You dreamed darkly last night too.” Zia chopped the sentence off and closed her eyes, muttering a calming word rhythm under her breath. “I do need him. But he’s not the only one I can take. And I think that right now, for this sevenday, I have sent enough young people into death. I don’t want one more.”

Tancorix sank back down, this time onto Zia’s cot. Absently, she shoved the cloak under her off to the side. “You don’t get to choose,” she reminded the general quietly.

“I know that!” Zia’s words were little more than a hiss now.

“Then why aren’t you acting on it?” The words were still quiet, searching. “You’ve barely slept in a week. This isn’t even battlefield unhealthy, it’s near-insanity unhealthy.” She regretted the choice of words when Zia flinched and rushed on, “I didn’t mean insanity. Well, I kind of did, but you’re not losing your mind. Just your…you…you’re too tired, Emerenzia.”

Silence filled the tent, the general standing stone still, her eyes fixed on the single candle on an overturned box next to her cot. Projection after projection spun through her eyes, racing to assure her that she’d found a way to accomplish the mission and not lose any more people today.

Then she sighed and sat down hard on Tancorix’s cot. “Fine. Yes. I know.” Reaching behind her head, she yanked her hair loose and began rebraiding it tightly. “I know,” she added again. Standing and picking up the discarded cloak, she swung it over her shoulders and started for the tent door.

“So? Where are you going now?” The wizard furrowed her brows deeply. How exhausted was the general if she didn’t even give a proper conclusion to the argument?

“To tell Meysu he can come after all.” Zia ducked out of the tent and then half turned to put her head back inside. “Rixi?”

“Yes?”

The general searched her friend’s eyes, and Tancorix let trust and faith shine for her.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Now and then my writing partner and I feel like writing something random. I find us several prompts, we scribbled something, sometimes it goes on to become more, sometimes it's one scene and then done.

My scene from tonight's session, based the prompt below and written to the soundtrack of David Bowie's "Heroes", The Script's "No Good in Goodbye", and Shiny Toy Guns' "Somewhere to Hide".

I never understood: why me. Why of all the people she could have chosen, why me to follow, to befriend, to love.

It
was not an uncommon question for me to ask silently of any of them.
But it’s unimportant right now, in this moment flying too fast.

Her breath catches in her throat, and I press her hand harder, trying to hold back the ebbing life. “Rest,” I urge, and my voice catches in a strangled sound like a rusty blade being pulled from an old sheath.

Her
eyes flash open, and I shove my feelings away so the worried look will
leave her eyes, so that she won’t worry about me in these moments. Her
last moments.

She
is hard to fool, and her indigo eyes tell me that she understands.
But then, she always did. “You did your duty,” she whispers. “We all
did.”

Diola
was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met. Hailing from
southern lands, her dark skin was highlighted with a dusting of gold
freckles that always seemed to make her eyes glow like a lake under the
noon sun…or so her second always used to describe it, especially when
under the influence of too much tangerine wine after a long battle.

He wasn’t wrong.

Her
black hair was always in five braids that represented each member of
her family no longer living. Those braids are stiff with blood now,
seeping from the wounds on her torso. The wounds no healer or wizard
can close.

She
gasps, her fingers scrabbling in my hand, signaling for me to bend
closer, to listen. I don’t want to turn my head to put my ear closer to
her mouth because I want to hold her eyes as long as possible. I want
to be the last thing she sees; I want her to know how sorry I am.

But
who am I to deny the wish of a dying woman to salve my conscience? I
tilt my head and lean closer, my ear level with her mouth.

“I
wish…I wish we’d had more time to…gether,” she croaks. Her breath
hisses through her teeth as she fights for one more breath and then
another one.

“I
wanted to turn to dust with you.” Her lips seem barely able to form
the words, but she keeps going, and I can hear each one as clearly as if
they cost her no effort.

“I wanted to be your captain for a long time. To see your new kingdom. To grow old watching the children we all saved.”

I
want to tell her to save her strength. I don’t want her last words to
be about her loyalty. About what she would have done for me. I don’t
want to be reminded of the weight that is settling crushingly over my
shoulders, never to leave it now. The weight of her death.

There
have been so many deaths, so many people I’ve sent to die. That is a
reality of war. But some sit more heavily than others, as hers will for
time and an age.

I
lift my head enough to meet her eyes again. They are starting to
flutter closed, but they lock onto mine one last time. I bend to kiss
her brow and as I straighten, I draw the sign for peace lightly on her
forehead, clammy with deathsweat.

She
can still feel enough that she knows what it is; she has drawn it on
enough foreheads in the aftermath of battles. Her lips twitch, and I
know she is trying to smile.

“Never…stop...queen.”

I stare into her eyes for a long time, but she doesn’t see it. She’s gone, fled with the echo of her last word to me.

I
wanted her to turn to dust with us too, my band of cohorts who have
spilled more blood for this land than it would ever know, than the
people we’d saved would ever realize.

“Goodbye, Diola,” I whisper, folding her arms over her chest, and then, squaring my shoulders, I rise.